fear

What if you were to change your previous cause and effect relationships to experience what happens next in the direction of trust? Interested in exploring this trust wild card?

This level of trust requires a merging of all your need to prove rightness about reality – to consider instead embracing an alternative reality that supports humility, openness, and authenticity. There’s nothing to lose because you never had anything to gain from being right. All you really have is your perceptions to fear – ghosts.

What about Ego?

I acknowledge I have an ego. That’s the aspect of mind that tells me what to do and how to do it. Behind every ego order, there’s an army of defenses armed and ready to give me a sense of authority. The seat of rightness can get pretty demanding when I abdicate my true self-authority.

Many of my life’s intentions have been left to ego, whose job it is to protect me from harm. So far, I think it’s done a pretty good job – at the expense of losing connection with others, not to mention losing touch with my genuine Self.

Considering the infrequency of my Self-awareness that’s capable of challenging ego, I must admit it may well be that I’ve simply believed the propaganda.

To explore beyond ego, one would have to release defenses of any kind. When you don’t have to be right, you won’t set yourself up to be wrong either.

Playing the Trust Wild Card

When you find that fear has left you, your choices increase exponentially and your opportunities for understanding match those choices.

Playing the trust wild card simply comes down to acceptance of Self as authority over ego, which is used to being in charge, a position it’s not keen to relinquish. Self-awareness may take Self-trust in the face of ego-imagined fears. With practice and patience, I can tame the wild beast.

I am part of a species that likes to measure things. It’s a characteristic of bubble awareness, in which we compare and compete to control. All measurements require four elements that I can frame in four familiar questions:

What is measured?

How is it measured?

Why is it measured?

Who is doing the measuring?

In any measurement there is a standard that represents an agreement among those who do measurements. For example, a unit of distance measurement only works when everyone who uses it agrees to the same standard. Because the measurement game is about control, I abide by standards of control. Measurement is all about fairness, a subject of mythology we’ve discussed previously.

We know we can objectively measure the effects of physical forces like gravity and the strong and weak forces of electromagnetism. And because we can measure the effects of these things in our world, we seek to measure the effects of things within us that are non-physical, like thoughts and emotions, that affect us physically. I seek to impose an imaginary balance between these two worlds to control them.

How Do I Measure the Subjective?

There are forces within me that I seek to master. I mean those elements of perception that I experience as personal – emotions, preferences, thoughts, biases, and etc.

Measure things is part of a program of mastership over my creation, which I sense as control. I seek to control forces because I don’t like living under compulsion. I seek to control because I don’t like living with restrictions. All these likes and dislikes live within my subjective world. Can I measure fear in the same way? How could one determine its dimensions?

Of all the “things” in my subjective world, fear is the only one that controls me and I feel a need to impose on others. Could I measure those subjective aspects against other aspects of thought? I recognize that I am part of a group that has its own measurement standards that affect my personal and subjective affect measurements. Those include my “do’s” and “do not’s”, “rights” and “wrongs” – that justify and validate my experience with control.

Within bubble awareness, I experience this kind of control as choice, which represents the subjective conflict between compared concepts. Choice is often a matter of measuring, comparing, and then controlling – providing a sense of freedom without actually being freedom. Control is still control even when it appears as a free choice. I FEEL good about my choice, so I must BE a good person – under control. Confirmation bias confirms my judgment of the choice, therefore, I AM FREE! It is still control – over me – that I must defend. Where’s the freedom in that?

Direction

What if I transform control into direction in my world? Direction invites where control forces. Directions points in A direction rather than in THE direction.

Besides, direction is more energy efficient than control. It’s energy expensive to control and coerce. It’s just as energy expensive to live controlled. When I transform control into direction, I can utilize many more options without experiencing overwhelm of the entire subject.

By breaking down the unimaginably large into manageable, measurable smaller parts, I can much more easily comprehend, appreciate, and direct EACH to imagine and realize the WHOLE.

Ultimately I seek to realize myself outside bubble awareness – merging my personal consciousness with universal consciousness – where fear, control, and choice no longer have a measurable place. It’s simply a place of honoring.

And maybe what I can do about it!

Predictions of past hurts can predict future hurts. When I fear a future of pain, I am robbed of my present focus. When I’m attending to a possible pain-filled future, that future is feeding on my present. Fear can’t feed on present experience, only on what doesn’t presently exist. My attention on fear increases the likelihood of my need to validate that fear.

Because I need to be right, I’ll tend to confirm my fear predictions through confirmation bias – increasing my trust in those predictions. This makes my future more likely to be fulfilled in fear.

We humans are notoriously poor predictors of our futures, yet, we do it with confidence. We trust that we know how things will go and how we’ll feel in the future because our trust in past predictions resulted in our present situation. When facing my present, I tend to fall on the past as if it were the present

What About Attention?

I have precious little attention to spread around. Of all that I could be aware, I am actually aware of a tiny fraction. 100% of my attention is aware of the tiniest subset of 100% of all that is. My predictions, based on this tiny subset, must be less than 100% accurate because I’m always short some data. I make most of my predictions on almost no data at all – based almost entirely on my trust in my senses, other people’s senses, and my education, all of which is data-short.

Due to my need to be right, I’ll fudge the data. Maybe I’ll outright lie to myself to feel more secure – as a defense against bad things happening. A prediction of bad things happening in the future sends me on a wild goose chase to defend against harm. And yet that harm is a prediction – one based on incomplete data that I “fill in” to make complete.

The more energy in the form of attention that I devote to trusting my prediction, the stronger the impact of fear upon my present. This makes attention key to a solution. What I attend to in the present, is what gets done. Focusing on fear, robs my present of energy required for action – and less gets done.

How Can I Bust the Fear Feed on My Attention?

First, realizing that predictions are just that – predictions based mostly on incomplete data – releases me from the trust I’ve placed in them. Predictions are NOT the truth – they are the workings of my imagination – and so, really should not be trusted. QUESTION predictions.

Next, FOCUSING ATTENTION ON WHAT IS HAPPENING in the present, redirects my energies away from unproductive fear based on imaginary probabilities to certain productive present action. This means doing an action right now that is firmly in the present – like making an inventory of my current physical sensations. What do I see, hear, feel – right now?

In this way, fear based on trust in an imaginary prediction gives way to solid, sensory-based, relatively certain present action. It may also bust a long-held, high-value fear and return precious energy for use elsewhere.

What I give attention to grows! I have a problem-solving mind. And because of this, my mind seems to forever need problems to solve. Sometimes I feel I’m creating the very problems I then must solve.

In my First-Second Degree of Illumination bubble awareness, I focus my attention on that which I fear. I fear what and who I perceive “I’M NOT.” It’s automatic and a problem that must be solved!

That fear adds a perceived value to what and who “I’M NOT”- a value I feel I’m missing. Problem! I may feel I gain a sense of being complete when I add that perceived value to an external substitute – like a loved one, pet or new gadget. Yet, that sense of wholeness is a temporary condition that convinces me that the addition completes my value. Problem solved! Or have I just created another problem?

Each problem I think I’m solving creates a drain on my energy and resources. This drain I call a fear-feed on my attention. Because I feel dependent on external value, I always have this unwhole problem to solve. This distracts my attention from those interests that validate my wholeness. I can take charge of my attention and focus it where my consciousness takes me – beyond measurable value.

A thought has no feed value without attention. The objective of fear is to capture and feed on my attention.

In bubble awareness, I associate fear with survival. In this survival state-of-mind, fear offers me a way to silence my need to survive by convincing me to accept and follow a simple equation:

Me + Not Me = Wholeness

In bubble awareness, fear rules my consciousness. I imagine someone or something holds a value I perceive is missing in me, a value I need in order to feel complete. Once I attain that which I believe completes me, I enjoy a high of feeling OK. Yet, after a while, that artificial high wares off and I’m back to feeling fearful and incomplete. More than anything I want to feel whole and complete, yet fear pulls my attention back to the “I’m Not” problem that I feel needs solving.

Beyond Fear

While I keep my imagination firmly locked within bubble awareness, I continue to allow the fear process to nibble away at my energies until my body and mind can no longer sustain the feed.

One cannot escape bubble awareness using bubble awareness. One cannot use fear to cure fear. I must look elsewhere. I must look within… take charge of my attention… and…

Where I focus attention determines what I experience. When I focus my attention on fear, my perspective changes to give me an experience of threat as reality. Discipline changes that formula.

To the undisciplined mind, fear seeks to prove inadequacy as rightness. Rightness is a need that must be defended within the First-Second Degree of Illumination bubble. Certainty about my fear solidifies its image in the mirror, making it real and threatening. My need to deal with threats pops up and takes over my awareness, focusing my attention on solving an illusory problem. Attention I divert from other, perhaps more useful, subjects – like gratitude, enlightenment, connection, and awakening.

About Disciplined Attention

Focusing on fear narrows awareness of options, resulting in suffering in the form of lack of confidence, perception of deprivation, and poverty consciousness. When I’m convinced I’m right, I narrow every perception, every judgment, every opportunity, to fit within the boundaries of that right path. “There’s only one way out!” says the hero. Well, yeah, maybe there is only one way out IF you know of no others or IF you’re so terrified that you can’t think properly. Yeah, then maybe there’s only one way.

To the disciplined mind, fear represents one among many options for attention. I can appreciate and respect the power of the fire without short-circuiting my brain with fear about it. The narrowing effect that fear has on my thinking abilities strongly influences my chances for survival in an emergency. This is the reasoning behind the rigorous training first-responders get. Much of it focused on managing their fear so they can retain that wondrous faculty for effective action we can bring about with a disciplined mind.

Mental discipline provides awareness of options, resulting in a sense of confidence, trust, gratitude, strength, and expanding consciousness. There are many effective methods for managing fears. Within the bubble, mental discipline requires practice – lots of practice. Perhaps a lifetime of practice.

What happens when I’m “late to the game” of mental discipline or don’t have time to devote to all that practice? What then? Am I just SOL?

Awareness and the Bubble

Imagine a soap bubble. Does it take a lot of work to open it? No, a simple pin will do the trick. What about illusory bubbles? What kind of effort, practice, study, physical strength, strategy, or instrumentation does it take to open one of those?

Perhaps awareness is the key to disciplining the mind over fear. Maybe bursting the fear bubble only requires awareness that the bubble is not real. When faced with a fear, sometimes I’ll shout to myself inside to, “stop!” Then I’ll take an inventory of here and now – ground myself in time and space. Sometimes counting items I see or feel helps. Then I’ll revisit the object of my fear – now that my mind has settled down a bit.

Yeah, my method is a sort of “trick” – that demonstrates how quickly, easily, and effortlessly a mind can be disciplined and brought into order. The mind gets sharper the more bubbles it pops.